Configure a USB flash drive to be a Windows 7 installation platform

I recently discovered a technique on the Microsoft TechNet Magazine site that describes how you can use a USB flash drive to install Windows 7.

This technique is very cool for two reasons: First, a flash drive is much more responsive than an optical drive since it doesn’t rely on physically moving components, so the installation procedure will be faster. Second, it provides an easy way to install Microsoft Windows 7 on a system that doesn’t have a DVD drive, such as a netbook

In this edition of the Windows Vista and Windows 7 Report, I’ll show you how to use the DiskPart utility to configure a bootable USB flash drive that you can then use to install the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system.